Certified Failure

Let me take you back to my second-to-last year at high school. In those days we had to go into school to pick up our exam results. As I was going on holiday the day my results were out I had arranged to pick up my certificates the day before, with the year above me. 

I had to speak to the Head of Year to get my results. He led me to his office and fumbled through a few papers on his desk then pulled out a transcript with my name on it. He did a double take at me and the piece of paper then handed it to me and said, “You can’t get results like that. You’ll bring down the school average.”

Although it was a shock to receive my results, it wasn’t actually a surprise. My whole year had been marked by academic failure. And honestly, it was humiliating to be me. A year prior, I had changed schools moving from self-paced learning workbooks which had fortnightly tests to class taught schooling with end of year exams. And since moving schools—failure became my norm.  I dreaded being asked my exam marks from my friends, because I came to know their shocked faces all to well. It’s only with hindsight that I realised I hadn’t learnt how to think and understand for myself, I’d only learnt to memorise.

I recently did a strengths test and my number five strength came out as intellection. The description of this says, “You like to think. You like mental activity. You like exercising the ‘muscles’ of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused; for example, you may be trying to solve a problem or develop an idea or understand another person's feelings.” 

When I read in black and white that one of my strengths is thinking and understanding I was pretty shocked. But the more I reflected on it, the more I realised how true it was—I value considered thought and understanding. 

For too long I had seen myself through the lens of my schooling. My academic failure shaped the view of my intellect. But I’ve changed. That’s the awesome thing about being human—we can grow, develop and change. 

I’m a failure, I have the certificates to prove it, but they are simply a marker of a period of time in my life. And truthfully,  I don’t have to give them the power to define me because I can choose what has that power—and it’s not going to be my past failures.